Citizen Summit at Anuradapura

A citizen summit was held related to  Active Citizenship for Development Network  on 17/18^th of February 2014 in Sevalanka Foundation in Rajanganaya, Anuradapuara. There were four main purposes to organize this event.  Reviewing the whole program being participated the citizen forum members was one the main purposes of the summit. The citizen forum process has past three years on the project. It provided an opportunity the citizen forum members to set together and analyze the program assessing the progress, weakness and challengers.   

Citizen forum members were able to strengthen the relationship among the citizen forums as well as interpersonal relationship also. It planned to aware the citizen forum members about different subjects through the summit. We invited to four external resource persons to share their knowledge with the citizen forum members. In that way,  Mr. Pradeep Jayarathne who is a journalist and political analyzer expressed on  role and responsibility of the active citizens in this   existing political, economic and social context in the country. Dr. Jehan Perera who is the director of National Peace Council shared his experience on Social development through peace and reconciliation  among the nations. Mr. Sujeeva Jayawikkrama, Journalist trained the members to use the comic arts to communicate information among the community effectively.

Mr. M.A.J. Thuram who is the Assistance Commissioner of the Local Government in Mannar educated the participants about the  importance and  responsibility of the local governmental institutes at regional development. We built up an open dialogue with the participant about the reconciliation among the nations based on a film name “Take this Road”.  We had above purposes at organizing the citizen summit. There were more than 45 participants from Mannar, Trincomalee, Kaluthara and Kegalle districts which are related to National Fisheries Solidarity Movement ( NAFSO) and Center for Society and Religion( CSR) Participants actively engaged with the summit. We were able to see very warm debates, discussions and intervention of the citizen forum members over different issues. A representative of Uva Community Development Center (UCDC) took part to the summit.  The representatives of CAFOD also participated to the summit. Chameera Perera who is the program of CSR and Navarathne Hennayake, program coordinator of UCDC facilitated the program. 

This event was organized by NAFSO with the support of CSR and the program coordinator on ACDN.